What could be worse than the death panels implicit in socialized medicine? Only one thing: death panels where it isn’t your government that choses who lives and who dies, but the malign and unaccountable United Nations. Once again the UK is a step ahead of us on the road to healthcare utopia, and offers an indication of where we are heading:

The NHS could be led to discriminate against the over 70s to meet ‘highly unethical’ UN health targets which seek to reduce premature deaths in younger people, senior medics have warned.

Under the proposed Sustainable Development Goals, UN member states will be given targets to cut the number of deaths from diseases like cancer, stroke, diabetes and dementia by one third by 2030.

However because many are age-related illnesses people who succumb to those diseases from the age of 70 are not deemed to have died prematurely and so are not included in the target.

In an open letter published in The Lancet, an international group of ageing specialists say the new guideline sends out the message that health provision for younger groups must be prioritised at the expense of older people.

Prof Peter Lloyd-Sherlock, professor of social policy and international development at the University of East Anglia, and lead author of the letter, said: “This premature mortality target is highly unethical, since it unjustifiably discriminates against older people.” …

Baroness Sally Greengross, former director of Age Concern England who also signed the letter said: “If adopted, this UN target could lead to institutionalised discrimination against older people in health care, both here in the UK and globally.”

The UN targets will impose pressure to double down on an alarming phenomenon that British socialize medicine has already produced:

The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (Nice [great acronym for a death panel]), was also criticised for attempting to change its funding criteria to take into account “wider societal benefits” when deciding on whether to fund drugs.

The pointy-headed progressive masterminds in charge know better than we do how long we should live.

If you have ever felt even half tempted to believe the subversive liberal spin that the Crusaders were the bad guys, you owe it to yourself to find out what really happened. Read God’s Battalions by Rodney Stark. The book is so riveting that as soon as I finished it yesterday I started right over from the beginning.

At this point, not even the moonbat who designed those creepy cult of personality posters that were so ubiquitous when the Moonbat Messiah was hyped into power are still buying the Hope & Change:

Shepard Fairey, who designed the famous “HOPE” poster of Barack Obama in 2008, says he’s disappointed in the man he partially helped elect as president. Esquire asked Fairey if he thinks Obama has lived up to his poster. “Not even close,” Fairey said.

If there’s any hope left, it’s that Fairey and other fools will be less likely to let themselves be carried along with the herd the next time it gets sent into a stampede by the media.

Warning — looking into the mind of a Democrat presidential candidate like Bernie Sanders is like peeking under a rock. You never know what kind of creepy-crawlies you will see squiggling around, only that they will surely be repulsive:

In an article entitled “Men-And-Women,” published in an alternative newspaper called the “Vermont Freeman” Sanders shared his thoughts on male and female sexuality in ways that would cause a media firestorm if it had been penned by any current GOP candidate. …

“A man goes home and masturbates his typical fantasy,” wrote Sanders. “A woman on her knees. A woman tied up. A woman abused.”

Sanders didn’t specify as to how he had gained such a deep understanding of the male psyche.

It is likely that some extrapolation from his own favorite thoughts was involved. Yet somehow Sanders also knows what women fantasize about:

“A woman enjoys intercourse with her man—as she fantasizes about being raped by 3 men simultaneously.”

That sound of crickets chirping is the response from feminists.

Needless to say, any Republican who had committed writings like these to paper even as far in the past as this 1972 article by Sanders could kiss his career good-bye.

The thoughts were taken out of context? So what? This is politics. Imagine the media giving a hoot about context if Ted Cruz had signed his name to them.

But Sanders can count on the usual benign neglect the establishment media employs when a story would be harmful to an ideological compadre, while its harder left vanguard aggressively defends him:

Why the "rape fantasy" attacks on Bernie Sanders won't work: Just look at his voting record http://t.co/YEewAx3R9w

As a presidential candidate, they say Sanders doesn’t chance a snowball’s chance in hell, because there are two Democrats ahead of him: Shrillary, whose influence peddling as Secretary of State could land her in prison for the rest of her life if Congress develops enough spine to investigate, and Martin O’Malley, who as Mayor of Baltimore and Governor of Maryland helped create the horrific mess that exploded across our televisions during the recent riots. Sanders is too extreme to get elected, they say, his voting record in the Senate being almost but not quite as far to the left as the current President and Vice President:

If the media could hype even Barack Hussein Obama into office, they could do the same for Sanders, and they will have to if the other flawed candidates fall on their faces. Any candidate the Republicans run will be demonized until small children wake screaming in the night for fear he is lurking under the bed. Sanders knows this; that’s why he’s running.

Let’s not forget the main lesson of 2008. With sufficient media support to stampede the herd, absolutely anyone can be elected president.

On Tuesday, the California State Assembly passed AB 775, known as the Reproductive Freedom, Accountability, Comprehensive Care and Transparency (FACT) Act. Authored by Assemblymembers David Chiu (D-San Francisco) and Autumn Burke (D-Los Angeles), the bill states that the act “require a licensed covered facility, as defined, to disseminate a notice to all clients, as specified, stating, among other things, that California has public programs that provide immediate free or low-cost access to comprehensive family planning services, prenatal care, and abortion, for eligible women.”

Not only would the bill require some pregnancy centers, specifically those devoted to pro-life causes, to advertise the availability of abortion, but it would also fine facilities that do not comply.

Last week saw multiple disappointments for religious organizations seeking relief from a government that hopes to impose gravely sinful behavior on them – namely, by forcing these organizations to cooperate in the dispersal of contraceptives and abortifacient drugs via health insurance plans.

Two of the organizations, Priests for Life and the archdiocese of Washington, were denied relief on Wednesday from the Health and Human Services (HHS) Department’s contraception mandate by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. The other, Notre Dame University, received its denial from the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals on Tuesday.

That it is still a soft tyranny does not mean it is a tolerable tyranny.

As of January, 57,762,169 American children have died by abortion since the Supremes imposed Roe v. Wade. Our redistributionist rulers want that blood on everybody’s hands.

What’s the next rung in Marie Harf’s career climb, now that she has been named a senior advisor to Hanoi John Kerry for spinning his Iranian nukes initiative? If she performs as disastrously as she did as State Department spokesmoonbat, she is likely to fail upward again. Maybe they will make her an admiral and name her Commander of the Atlantic Fleet:

The pride of bearing witness to our first female Commander of the Atlantic Fleet will more than make up for the Chinese and/or Russians sinking the last of our ships.

The internet was buzzing this week with video of First Lady Michelle Obama apparently showing extreme disrespect to the American flag at a ceremony in honor of the victims of the September 11, 2001 terror attacks. As police and firefighters fold the flag to the sound of marching bagpipers, a skeptical looking Mrs. Obama leans to her husband and appears to say, “all this just for a flag.” She then purses her lips and shakes her head slightly as Mr. Obama nods.

Here’s the video:

Even if that’s what she said, it’s not that the Bitter Half is inherently disrespectful. They were just honoring the wrong flag. This one is more like it:

If only liberals’ Keynesian belief that wealth is created by the government wasting it had merit, Sydney, Australia would be cured of its homeless problem due the prodigious profligacy of Lord Mayor Clover Moore:

Moore’s seemingly endless appetite for wacky projects is growing yet again as the City of Sydney confirms it will start work on its own cafe for cyclists next year and open the business in 2017.

The neighborhood is already crowded with cafes, but this one will be special; it will be run by the government.

The forecast cost to ratepayers is $16.1 million, up from a budget in 2013 of $14.7 million, and comes as the city’s homeless population sits at a five-year high — sparking fresh calls for the council to take a long, hard look at its spending priorities and for business and residential rates to be slashed.

There were 827 rough sleepers and people staying in temporary shelter during the City’s February homeless count — the highest total since August 2010 when 830 homeless people were recorded.

Over the same period, Ms Moore has authorised spending of $8 million to develop a “green” trigeneration power plant for Town Hall, $1.65 million for an urban farm for inner-west hipsters, $9.3 million on three public art commissions and $64 million on bike lanes.

And in 2014, $45,000 of ratepayer cash was spent filling Martin Place, Kings Cross and other locations with weeds.

Regarding the trigeneration project, which is apparently intended to combat the nonexistent global warming crisis,

The City says it will achieve a five per cent reduction in carbon pollution and documents seen by the Daily Telegraph outline how the final cost could run up to $22 million.

The plans could involve City of Sydney attempting to sell thermal energy and chilled water to local businesses…

The confidential trigeneration documents seen by the Daily Telegraph say it is unclear what, if any, demand there would be from local businesses to buy energy or water from the City.

The $1.65 million urban farm will feature stingless bees and a bee hotel. Then there is the $9.3 million wasted on “art” like this bizarre “milk crate” project:

As for the homeless problem…

“Despite homelessness being a state government responsibility, the City invests $1.4 million dollars a year through NSW Family and Community Services to help people experiencing it,” a City of Sydney spokesman said.

Here’s an idea to help the homeless. Rather than confiscating money and then throwing it to the four winds, the city should let businesses keep and invest it. Then there would be more businesses, and consequently more jobs.

Do not attempt to withstand the levels of hypocrisy that are customary to moonbats. Necessity has caused them to develop a special resistance. For nonmoonbats, something like this could cause an implosion into utter shame:

Labor leaders, who were among the strongest supporters of the citywide minimum wage increase approved last week by the Los Angeles City Council, are advocating last-minute changes to the law that could create an exemption for companies with unionized workforces.

The law will jack up the minimum wage to $15/hour, causing countless businesses to go under.

For much of the past eight months, labor activists have argued against special considerations for business owners, such as restaurateurs, who said they would have trouble complying with the mandated pay increase.

Yet they want an exemption for themselves.

If they don’t think union employees should get $15/hour (even if that often means getting nothing because the company you work for has to lay you off or goes out of business), why did they push for the increase?

Ruben Gonzalez, senior vice president for public policy and political affairs with the Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce … said the change sought by labor officials could pressure companies into letting employees unionize as a way to seek relief from the mandated wage hike.

“Once again, the soaring rhetoric of helping the working poor is just a cover for city government acting as a tool of organized labor,” he said.

Okay, now I get it.

That’s why Big Labor pours so much money into the candidacies of leftists like Obama. Only a dupe would think it is to help the working man.

Politically correct dogma now requires liberals to believe that it is normal to be a pervert. Some are capable of this impressive feat of ideological obedience, but others will still feel an instinctive distaste for the pathological. So social engineers, exploiting their control of government schools, have focused on the malleable minds of the young. A new book entitled George from the children’s publisher Scholastic gives an idea of how far over the top they are taking the brainwashing:

George is the first effort by author Alex Gino, self-described on Facebook as a “[p]rogressive middle grade novelist, author of GEORGE (fall 2015, Scholastic). Fat queer activist, glitter liberationist, urban gardener, and then some.” Gino’s bio on Twitter is similar:

Scholastic has been sending teachers prepublication copies of the book. The Weekly Standard offers a synopsis:

Although the book is targeted at middle-schoolers, George tells the story of a fourth grader named George, a boy who has “always” thought of himself as a girl. He keeps a stash of Seventeen and other girls’ magazine hidden in his room, chafes at being called a “boy” or “young man,” and is mortified by his own anatomy. A class production of Charlotte’s Web brings the issue to a head when George wants to portray the spider Charlotte, a part offered only to the girls in his class.

The author Gino exclusively uses female pronouns to refer to George throughout the story, distracting for an adult but potentially unsettling for the novel’s preteen and young teen target audience. The book’s back-flap bio of the author takes a different tack, saying of Gino that “George is their first novel,” a remarkable grammatically incorrect concession for an educational publisher to make in a children’s book.

Although George uses Charlotte’s Web as the vehicle to tell this eight year old boy’s story, readers may find that the story The Emperor’s New Clothes comes to mind as well. Although not everyone immediately accepts George’s new gender, many of the cool characters do, and the reader is given the impression that reason will win the day and the others will come around.

The intent to implant unnatural opinions or at the very least to create confusion as to what is normal and healthy could not be more clear. Yet again we see that leftist ideology is not just wrong but depraved, and that its proponents will stop at nothing to impose it on the innocent. Pay very close attention to what these creeps are giving your kids to read.

It’s okay that Obama has brought an end to Pax Americana by reducing America’s military strength and world stature, because the more politically correct United Nations can step forward to fill the vacuum by securing peace throughout the world, just as it does in the conflict between beleaguered Israel and the surrounding Islamists who promise to wipe it off the map. Let’s check in on how that’s going:

Reports out of southern Lebanon tell us that the Iran-backed terrorist group Hezbollah continues to expand its network of tunnels along the border with Israel, preparing for another war. That’s not an accusation by Israeli sources, but a boast by Hezbollah, detailed in a series of recent articles in a Hezbollah-linked newspaper, As-Safir. As summed up by The Times of Israel, Hezbollah provided As-Safir reporters with a tour of its tunnel network, which they duly described as vast, advanced, reinforced, equipped with a 24-hour power supply, a ventilation system, and webs of escape shafts — connected to bunkers and surveillance posts.

While building this maze, Hezbollah has also been restocking its arsenal, following the 2006 summer war it launched against Israel. The Times of Israel story goes on to cite the estimates of a senior Israeli intelligence official that Hezbollah now has, as they sum it up, some “100,000 short-range rockets capable of striking northern Israel, several thousand missiles that can reach Tel Aviv and central Israel and hundreds more that can strike the entire country.” Most of these weapons have come from Syria and Iran. This adds up to much more firepower than Hezbollah had when it triggered the 2006 war by kidnapping two Israeli soldiers — whom Hezbollah murdered, while the UN assured Israel that it was negotiating their safe release.

Sounds like the Religion of Peace is planning to launch yet another terror war. Not to worry; the United Nations has established a presence in Lebanon, Hezbollah’s base. It’s called UNIFIL (UN Interim Force in Lebanon). Here are the steps it has been taking to avert war:

And on May 15th, they organized a clown show, for children with special needs, featuring a “team of highly trained professionals specialized in clown therapy to promote messages of hope and peace.”

When we finally manage to flush Obama, Kerry, Biden, et al. out of Washington, don’t be surprised if they turn up in the UN. They will place the emphasis where it belongs — on the true threat to peace: climate change.